Through The Looking Glass
by WhisperedInTheSoundofSilence
Summary: Fayne Lavellan gets pulled through an eluvian. Set some time after the story "Like a Willow" and between the end of the game, and the Trespasser DLC in the Dragon Age Game (Dragon Age: Inquisition/Skyrim crossover. This is a co-writing project with a friend of mine. Please R and R.)
1. Chapter 1

Fayne Lavellan opened the door into which the Eluvian was kept, gazing upon it's surface longingly. It had been only a few days since Morrigan had opened the gate for her, taking them through to the "In Between" as she had called it.

"Knowledge and experience..." She said ruefully, as she shook her head. Who did that human think she was? Was she really not even worthy of using the things that her people had created? She reached out and touched the reflective surface gently. A blue jolt went through her fingertips, and spread throughout the mirror, the surface rippling and moving. She stepped back a bit, and then pressed her hand to it again, it going through easily.

She smiled, and took a deep breath, stepping through the device into the pocket of the Fade which was the In Between. There was a soft rippling feeling against her skin and clothes as she emerged from the other side. The view was the same as the last time she had been here. Pale white sky with many leafless trees stretching up to it, also a mist that seemed to shroud everything. The air was still, nothing moved, no wind blew. It was quiet.

There were other eluvians here that stood amongst the trees. The elf walked through the cobbled paths between, marking in her mind where her mirror lay as she looked at the rest. Her footfalls made the only sound in this place, a soft thud as the leather hit the ground slowly and rhythmically. The Fade felt ridiculously close to her, almost as if it was pressing in at all sides, as if she could just poke her hand through, and be in the land of dreams. She caught sight of her reflection in one of the broken mirrors that she passed, seeing her blank face reflected there. No tattoo, no vallaslin. She had almost forgotten that she had had Solas to remove it. She reached up and touched her face. He was gone now, like the mark. Slave markings, indeed, at least they had bound her to her people...now she felt bereft, more alone than the alone that she was in, walking these ancient paths of her people, feeling a distant homesick, that she didn't even know she had. Like a keen ache deep in her soul.

She watched as there was a bit of a twinkle in the dead mirror on her cheek, and reached up, feeling wetness there. She wiped the tears away, and looked away from her reflection, back towards some of the trees. Most of the mirrors were empty. Just blackness beyond. She wondered how...

Her eyes blurred as she looked unseeingly within the pocket of the Fade as she looked for magic in the area, before she caught a glimpse of some life crackling behind one of the mirrors. She walked there, seeing that this one looked very old, the frame a cracked stone. On top there was an image of a dragon with pointed wings, it's head to the right. She blinked, and looked, not seeing much in the glass, but a mercurial black. She wondered if this one worked.

She tilted her head to the side, and placed her hand on the smooth glass, the anchor on her left hand flaring up. There was a great roar that shook the In Between, as a dragon's maw reached through the eluvian, snapping at her, and dragging her through to the world beyond bodily, her screams echoing in the place, before the mirror became dark again.

The Dragonborn awoke to the bright gleam of the midday Skyrim sun, shining brightly through her bedroom window in Lakeview Manor. Of the few times she had stopped to rest,this was one of the more rare sights in the bleak Skyrim weather normally awash the land.

She rose somberly from her bed,thinking quietly of the tasks she would undertake. She moved to her mirror standing tall in front of it. She examined herself closely. She checked careful for wounds or scars she may have missed during the night. Firstly her torso,"Shoulders look fine no damage, still pale though." she thought. "What Nord isn't?" She quipped to herself. "No change in general torso area, still satisfactory" she noted.

Quickly examining the rest of her tall, lean, frame she found no scars or cuts out of place and began to outfit her dovah armor. As she stepped out of the manor her Bone Reaver sheathed to her left and her Fate bow and dragon-bone arrows clad to her back. The Armor a pale Plate made of bones from slain dragons. Bound by a black leather of dragon skin the armor was as intimidating as it was inspiring. The blade equally so as it was a master crafting and enchanting by the Dragonborn herself. Her bow a Black dwarven Bow found within Kagrumez after completion of three trials. Each uniquely enchanted.

She summoned her hell-stead Arvak. A Dark blue horse of bone and soul-fire, she had gained her horse for freeing a soul from the purgatory-esque soul cairn.

She mounted Arvak and rode to the sound which had awoken her. Far into the distance she could hear the roar of an Elder dragon. The beast had roamed too close for her to ignore and she was not about to decline such a brazen challenge. Kind as she maybe was she was still immortal and sometimes begged a combatant worthy of her. She rode the path from her home up the mountain the dragon had been perching atop when calling words of battle.

She reached the top of the snowy mountain top to find the dragon pulling an elf through some kind of rift one of them had made. She dismounted and Arvak disappeared, as she began to run towards the dragon, her guardian sigil glowing luminously on her right cheek. She pulled her blade now wielded in her right hand, her thunderbolt spell cast in her left. "Joor-Zah-Frul"she shouted. Dragonrend immediately connected, trapping the dragon on the ground.

She leaped atop the dragons back driving the bade in a deep cut across the dragons spine. The dragon released the elf seemingly unharmed other than minor bites. The dragon now enraged at the challenge the Dragonborn posed, turned and snapped its jaws back at the her. She evaded rolling down its wing and cutting under its stomach. Blood now draining from the wounds seemed invisible as the dragons scales matched it in tone. The Dragonborn cast a blue pillar of lightning at the dragon, stunning it briefly. It was enough, the Dragonborn jumped atop the dragons head and brought down bone reaver hard enough to drive it down through the upper jaw, killing it instantaneously.

She leaped down and lifted the elf from the ground, just then beginning to absorb the dragon soul. To her surprise the dragon soul began circling the elf as well as her. She knew her sigil would, but the strange marking on the elf's cheek to began to glow bringing it to the Dragonborn s attention for the first time. The Dragonborn looked closely trying to identify it. She would have many questions later on as she removed her helmet and her smile kind and yet vaguely proud. Her thin face and long red hair accented by her green eyes and naturally crimson lips. These features now freed from the restrictive helm.

"My house is just down the mountain you clearly aren't from around here, so I suspect you'll need a place to stay." She said her voice soothing and sweet only lightly showing her nordic accent. She began to cast a grand healing spell, the bright golden light now circling her, and magically healing the elf's injuries. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The elf had felt a slight tingling upon her skin after the dragon had died, she looked at it's great body. She had seen, and felled a few dragons in her own homeland, though none had been this size. She looked back to the woman who had helped her. She appeared to be human. She spoke kind words, as some sort of healing magic soothed her injuries. She even felt the scar on her lip heal a bit, lessening it's stain upon her heart-shaped face.

She smiled at the offer of a place to rest, but then looked towards the sky where she had been drug from. There was no rift, nor any mark where she had come. After she was healed, she looked at the woman, and smiled. "Ma serannas, great warrior." She said, rather formally, her voice having the tinge of an accent that was hard to place. Northern Fereldan, in her realm, a slight lilt to the end of her words in this realm, almost like the whisper of the deep past of the way high elves spoke today.

The mark on her face died back down again to nothing, but while it was there, it was similar to that of a curled vine. She felt somewhat renewed by both the dragon dying, and the powerful healing magic that the woman had done. She looked around. This place was similar to Thedas, but the smell was different, and, it was colder. She was dressed in simple dark brown leathers, her shoulder length brown hair touching the top of the collar of her vest. She was missing something. "My staff." She said simply, as she searched around, picking it up. Apparently, it had fallen from the rift as she was drug through it. She picked it up, taking a deep breath of the dragon-blood tinged air in relief, as she felt it's familiar weight.

She gripped it tightly, and looked at the woman with the red hair. "I appreciate your help, but I must get back to Skyhold." She said, as she lifted her staff, and opened her left hand, towards the sky where the rift had formed. Her left hand began to glow green with the mark, before she bid the Fade to come to her, she bid the rip in the veil to come.

There was a small distortion in the sky, but nothing else. She frowned, and shook her head, before placing the bottom blade of her staff down on the earth, and closing her eyes, feeling the Veil about them. It was heavy. So heavy, that she couldn't pierce it. Yet. The mark on her hand quit glowing, as she looked back towards the warrior. "I believe the veil is closed to me now...I...can't reopen it." She then looked away, and placed the staff upon her back to make it easier to carry.

Somewhat disheartened, she began to follow the woman down the mountain towards the large house that appeared near what looked like a large body of water.

The Dragonborn walked with the elf rather quietly. Having immediately understood her situation and knowing no way to console her. Worse yet she knew no way to predict her power nor reaction to her displacement. "there maybe a way to return her but I will not risk giving her hope I cannot truly deliver." She thought, while scanning over the elf. "I'm afraid you may not be able to return to your homeland." She started somberly, "if you have traveled the outlands of the void then then there is no known way on Nirn I can return you."

She looked over to the elf, sympathy most apparent in her eyes. "However I will speak to the greatest minds of Skyrim, and see if we may be able to develop a way for you to return home. I cannot promise success, but we will try with our greatest effort. I expect your pain is great, but I hope you may have peace with time. If you need you may stay with me at my manor. I don't know what you did in your previous realm but I can supply you training for a trade. Anything to help your integration in our realm."  
She gave her speech her voice carrying the weight of her sympathy and condolences. She looked again over the elf trying to read her body language. Attempting to understand how she may be feeling. She noted the disappearance of the sigil that was on the elf's cheek before. "Is she perhaps her world's guardian? If so this is a far more tragic pain then I could imagine." She pondered this extensively waiting for the elf to speak. She had forgotten to properly introduce herself as had the elf. She could easily understand the silent reverence the elf may have been in, for her current situation all but ripped her from all those she loved, or cared for. Indeed it was like being separated by the gods themselves, like death. Between her and her loved ones an impassable realm. The Dragonborn, being empathic due to her guardian status, could vividly emote to all of this. She hoped she could help the elf or at least bring her peace as guardian or not she was now under Syn's protection.

They arrived in front of the large manor a few moments later. The large two story home Syn had built came into view. The grey carved wood frame and long ornamental carved siding, plainly exhibiting the heroic nature of its resident. The door not far ahead as they crossed the lightly outgrown path. The dirt pathway flanked with the trim green wintergrass that lay flat over many parts of the land. They walked up to the main halls decorated cherry wood doors. Syn had made this manor her sanctum, a base in which she could prepare for the next threat and live in peace between. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Thank you for your offer." Fayne said, as she walked with the human. She was a bit smaller than Syn, with large pointed ears, and a slight frame befitting one that perhaps spent more of her battles flinging magic instead of other, more martial means. The staff on her back glowed lightly with blue veins of some sort of metal which seemed to emit a low grad humming sound, if the area around it was quiet, like if the stone itself was singing. She was aware of the other s sympathy, and she was greatly relieved. As they neared the manor, the elf looked around. This person was obviously a very important person, as herself, but she didn't know...

"Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself." She said, with a smile, though her emerald green sharp eyes were far away, trying to formulate stratagems on how to get home, and trying to fathom what exactly Nirn was. Was it the world she found herself on? Why would the ancient elves make a doorway into this world that was so far up high from the actual ground? "My name is Fayne Lavellan. I am an elvhen apostate from the world of Thedas, and am head of the Inquisition. Some call me the herald of Andraste , though I don't much like that title." She smiled, her eyes coming back from the far off calculations, and looking into the green eyes of the woman that had saved her from the dragon. "It's nice to meet you." She said formally, as far as introductions go. She had learned a lot of the more human customs because of her station, and the fact that Thedas was run by the shemlins.

The manor was quite impressive, the wooden accents reminding her a little of Ferelden's wooden carvings and reliefs. She looked around for other people like herself, knowing that this was a shem household, there would probably be elvhen servants, as there was always wont to be if the human was rich enough. She was mildly surprised to see close to no one, though there appeared to be a few humans scattered here and there working on the upkeep of such a place. She saw no sunburst symbols anywhere. She wondered idly what the prevailing religion might be, and if it was as pervasive as Andrastianism on her own world.

She felt a deep lonesomeness in her chest. What if she really wasn't able to get back to Thedas? How might the Inquisition survive without her? Granted, they had already defeated Corypheus, the rest of the work that they had to do was mainly sealing up the rifts, and rebuilding the Chantry. She absently squeezed the grip of her staff as she walked. She could use this place as a base while she gathered information, though she wondered if she would even be able to read the books, etc, that might be available. She had recognized the human's armor...dragon bone. She had a bit of dragon bone armor herself, though she hadn't thought to bring it with her in the In Between. Why had she been there again? Ah yes...to find out which one of the eluvians had still worked, and to be alone. Everyone had felt up against her skin after Solas's disappearance, and after the defeat of Corypheus. She had finished his artwork in the middle of Skyhold, and had found herself lingering in the Chantry, wishing that she had made it into a garden instead, the Chant of Light very much not comforting her, as she didn't even believe, she had just let the masses believe what they wanted. She thought that she might have memorized it by now, she had heard it so often. That had only served to make them believe once more that she was Andrastian. So, to be alone, within the semblance of her people around her, or else, what they had made when they were at their height, is why she had been in that particular pocket of the Fade. And now she might not return.

'Be careful what you wish for.' She thought, ruefully, as they stepped foot inside Lakeview Manor. She wondered how long it would take the others to wonder about her, as she had told them she would be gone several hours...

Syn entered the long wooden home, it's interior design not much different from the outside. She had always loved the look of a home like this on the few times her mother had taken her to her place of work. Syns mother was a servant by nature, Syn's father lost in the great War had given her some training. She felt a deep sense of longing having left those memories alone for far too long. She checked over the house momentarily glancing anywhere that may have noticeably changed. "Other than that sword off the rack I'd say the mannequins came to life again" she thought, a mild irritation crossing her.

It dissipated as she turned to speak to the elf. "Good to meet you Fayne. I can't say I know what the Inquisition is or who Andraste maybe but I presume it is the God of your world, no?" she spoke hoping to answer a few questions Fayne may have. She could see Fayne had been distant in their walk. However she knew not what pervaded her mind. "If you were involved in the religious sects of your world you should know, our land is currently in a bit of unrest." She began mildly "Let me not get a head of myself, there are in our world 9 aedra and 8 Daedra, the Aedra being benevolent but silent in the traditional sense, the Daedra being highly interactive but only three are not inherently evil. The unrest stemming from the elven Aldameri Dominion treatise with the Cyrodillic Empire which bans one of the divines worship." She continued a set tone of indifference notably etched to her words.

"Though I have fought on the same side as the Aldameri I do regard Talos in great reverence but this is only because I being dragon born am this era's hero. As such I know Talos did in fact rise to the gods. I normally would not carry on about the gods as I do not revere most. I am immortal so it is of no consequence to me but it may interest you with such a background. " She nearly finished. "ah but let's separate you from, that of your title. Were you the Guardian or perhaps the hero of your world's era? I hate to ask so blatantly but if you are we must work hard to try to return you." She said a slight sense of urgency in her tone. "And worry not if you have secrets regarding your response, I don't speak of hero's matters anywhere but here as no one enters my home but me or companions of mine." She looked to Fayne with reassurance not knowing if she would need any.

She sat at the closest side seat of long feast table in the main hall. Motioning for Fayne to the seat across the table from her. "before to you answer my questions though I will answer yours, anything I cannot tell you I can bring literature of from the mage college. Don't worry about overdue dates, being the archmage I won't hold it to you" Syn joked giving a hardy Nord smile and a light laugh under her breath. Syn hoped some humor may open the way to gain a report with Fayne. She looked the adventurous type as Syn herself did. Maybe if all went well she would have a new companion to travel with. She tossed this idea in her head "two worlds hero's working together... What challenge could withstand?" she thought proudly. The wheels in her head began to turn and there was no stopping it now.

She smiled at the attempt at humor that Syn had levied at her. It put her somewhat at ease to know that here, she didn't seem to be discriminated against.

She followed her lead and sat at the table in a chair somewhat close as she digested everything that the human had said. She had a lot of questions, but she at first needed to answer the ones that were posed to her. "...I suppose I could be considered a guardian." She said quietly, as she took another glance around, then leaned her staff against the table near her, tucking a lock of her chocolate brown hair behind her long pointed ear revealing a long scar along her right cheek, and also along her lip. It appeared to be from either an animal or a monster attack at first glance. "...I completed so much with the Inquisition, we defeated a Tevinter magister. One that wished to be a god." She said as she placed her hands on the smooth surface of the table, looking at them, before looking back at the human. "Andraste wasn't a deity...she was, what was called, "The Maker's Bride." She was the Maker's -the human's god- chosen one to lead his followers." She smirked a bit. "...now that I say it outloud, it does seem rather silly, doesn't it? I'm known as her -herald-, and the people, as a whole, don't even know that I don't believe." Her eyes were hard as she said this, her voice as well, before her countenance softened once more. "It seems as though your own deities...Aedra, and Daedra...are very numerous...though isn't it funny that all the ones that are supposedly good are always absent, and we are just left with our own actions? It's always that way." She shook her head, falling silent, and placing her hands from the table onto her lap.

She looked around. "You have a nice place. It seems the place of one important." She paused, and looked back, "You are..the Dragon born? What is that? Were you born from a dragon?" She asks this, while continuing to feel the thickened veil in the area. This whole world seemed to function like the immediate area around one of the elven artifacts in Thedas. It was almost thick to breathe through, though it was only a little uncomfortable, like the room being a bit stuffy. She had killed several, but none with the ease of which this...dragon born had only a few moments ago. It was always with her companions. She idly wondered what kind of power she had. Archmage? She had the build of one that was more martially inclined. Perhaps it was possible to be a master of both? Or maybe it was something granted by one of the...Daedra, or Aedra.

As she asked that, there appeared to be a ripple in the room near the table that they were sitting at. "Dragon born in name only, eating the souls of once great creatures, absorbing their power. Immortality hanging on, boredom, but revelry...wishing for a companion. Be careful." A young man's soft voice floated through the air from what appeared to be a ripple in the air. Not a tear or a portal, just a little ripple. "...Can't break through...it's too heavy here, too dense, dark. I will try again." The ripple ceased after a bit, and there was no more voice.

"Cole? Cole?" The elf looked around, but stayed seated. If the spirit couldn't get through, then how might she? Her left hand glowed dimly with the stretching of the veil, then went silent. 


End file.
